Ready For The Thaw
by AlreadyPainfullyGone
Summary: Part 2 of the Wolf Dean Saga. Set After 'Frozen Inside'. Wolf!Dean is mated to Castiel now, but reconnecting with John's pack causes a whole new set of problems.
1. Chapter 1

_New chapter! New fic I know a lot of people wanted to see the part where Sam finds out that Dean changed back. The whole Dean not being human for ages thing, is very much a subplot that carries over, past the point of the end of the last fic._

_So don't worry._

The sun is out, lancing through the trees in hotter than skin speckles. They glint off of Sam's brown fur as he runs for his life.

His paws strike the packed, baked dirt over and over, propelling him along through sunspots and leafy darkness, branches and vines whipping against his sides and snapping back into place behind him. Whipping again as they're disturbed by his pursuers.

Sam's heart pounds against his ribs, his muscles ache, and he can barely hear for the thudding of blood in his own body.

He leaps a small rock, skids to a halt, and holds his breath as he listens.

Silence.

He cocks his ears in every direction. Nothing. He's upwind, scenting nothing but the trees and the dirt and a thousand incidental forest smells.

He gets no warning before the attack, and he's thrown over sideways, snapping and growling, tussling against his foe and struggling back to his feet, leaping deftly away and diving back into the forest.

He's rounding a small, deep pond, when the attack comes from above, a weight landing on his back and pushing him down, before flinging him elegantly into the cool, green water.

He plunges in, submerged entirely by the sudden riot of leafy water. Sam expels bubbles from his mouth, strikes out for the surface, and by the time he reaches it, he's shed his animal form, rising as a man from the sun dappled water.

"That was underhanded." He spits, kicking to keep afloat.

From the bank, Castiel watches, wearing his animal form, a full sized cat-like creature with grey and black speckled fur and pointed ears, crested with black. He looks at him imperiously. A golden haired wolf bolts from the forest, scrabbling to a stop beside him, looking down at Sam, its tongue lolling in a grin.

Sam splashes water, which Castiel avoids with a hiss, creeping over to an outcrop of moss covered rock, tail lashing pointedly. Sam knows what's about to happen, now that he's downwind he can smell the musk on both of them, and he sighs, striking out into a swim and circling the pond a few times underwater. It's so nice to finally have warm water in the forest, now that the thaw has come, and summer soon after. He knows Jess is much happier now that the hungry months are over.

Sure enough, when he surfaces, it's to be greeted by the sight of Castiel, now human, tanned skin still much paler than Sam's own, lying prone on the rock, his body mostly covered by Dean's own as they move together.

Sam watches them from the water, unable to get used to the sight of his brother in his human form. He's not embarrassed by their nakedness, or by the fact that his brother is currently in the throes of mating. The first time Dean had changed back to his human form, the night Sam had brought Jess back to the forest, he had been astonished. Dean had not been human in years, and yet he changed, seamlessly, and curled up with Castiel as if it were a normal occurrence.

Sam had started at him for the longest time, but Dean had kept his shoulders hunched, his body tense, a sure sign that he didn't want to talk about it. So, Sam had kept his piece, and had done what he could to understand the sudden difference in his brother. He'd asked Castiel.

Of course, Sam had heard of the mating bond, their parents hadn't had it, but other skinwalkers had, once they were fully mated. Castiel hadn't been able to explain it incredibly well, but Sam had grasped that Castiel sometimes saw things from Dean's memory, experiencing them as Dean had himself. Sam was instantly jealous of the closeness that the settler shared with his brother, but, he understood that it was something he would never share with Dean, or anyone else, as his mate was human.

Castiel had told him that, while he was with Dean, he had felt...something. It was more a feeling than a memory, but still, it had convinced Castiel that Dean had thought it was best to remain a wolf for the previous five years. He didn't know why. Only that Dean had considered it of the utmost importance.

Which was almost good enough for Sam to respect. If only he knew why his brother had chosen to hide from him in his primitive silence for so long. They were brothers, pack bound, Alpha and Beta. Dean could tell him anything. Yet he had chosen to close in on himself, and bear his secrets.

It worried Sam more than the possible threats that still loomed around their forest home. Castiel and Dean had relayed the events of their capture in detail, and all of them were worried that retribution would come for them, in the form of hunting parties, fire and nooses. Sam was bar far the most concerned, now that Jess had given birth they were in a vulnerable position, having to care for baby Joshua meant that they could no longer live rootlessly.

So far, there had been no assault on them, but they were being careful, keeping clear of settlements and the forests that the men scavenged.

Their home now was a fresh burrow in the depths of the forest, and it was there that Jessica was currently resting, asleep, with the baby at her side. She was safe, Sam could tell that much simply through the mated bond that they shared.

Dean leapt into the water, startling him from his grim consideration of their future. Strong hands wrapped around his ankles, and Sam was dragged under the water, kicking and grappling with his brother.

(-*-)

Castiel felt boneless as he basked in the sun. The moss on the rock underneath him was velvet soft, and the light that turned it emerald green was almost hypnotic. Perhaps it was just another thing to come from his conversion to Dean's race, this attachment to glimmers of light, as if they were bright birds to hunt.

He stretched, satisfied and warm, happy to watch the two brothers as they fought and splashed in the leaf strewn water. He had never been overly fond of swimming himself, and now he felt a strong aversion to any play involving deep, cool water. Instead, he closes his eyes and allows a small sight to escape him. In the months it has taken for winter to lose its grasp on the land, he has himself, thawed. The sharp needles of guilt that jabbed him every time he had lain with Dean had lessened in number. Now they were almost gone. Guilt was for times of sorrow, of pain and loss. Castiel had released his pain from his incarceration, and now he was...blissful. Happy to an extent that he had never imagined could be possible. The glimmering forest, his nakedness, and Dean's ardent attention...it smacks of Eden, and he has grown to love it, and every facet of their life.

Well, all but one.

He has grown to love Sam as a brother, and Jessica as a sister. A fellow settler who has found herself in a place he recently occupied – a stranger in a supernatural world. Yet...he envies them. He would die for Joshua, the small boy that looks so much like Jessica herself, that no trace of her husband seems visible. He envies them their child, and the way that their frequent mating seems almost guaranteed to produce another, soon.

Worse, he knows that Dean envies them too.

He has said nothing, and it is not in Dean's nature to ever voice the ideas that form within his mind, navigating the dark, confusing landscape of it and venturing where Castiel cannot go. But he knows all the same. He sees it in the brief glimpses he gains of Dean's memories – of his parents, and his own childhood, shifting in and out of pup form, learning to hunt and run and fight with his father.

He sees it in the way that Dean looks at Sam, with a kind of black mistrust, momentary, but powerful. There is animal inside Dean still, whatever form he wears, and a much stronger one than either Sam or Castiel possess. An animal that knows its position as Alpha is tenuous – with a mate who cannot produce a family, and a brother with a fast growing advantage.

Of course, Sam would never dream of taking Dean's place, and Dean knows this. But, the fact that Sam would decide not to defeat Dean, is not the same as Dean retaining supremacy. The knowledge had Castiel tense and worried.

And there is nothing he can do.

Sam had asked him, shortly after his return, if he was happy.

They had been sitting by the fire, outside in the woods, waiting for Dean to return from that nights hunt.

"Are you happy, Castiel?"

Castiel had frowned. "Yes."

Sam hadn't seemed relieved by his answer, if anything he had appeared more perturbed. "How do you know?"

"I feel it." Castiel had pressed a fist against his breast bone. Words, and all their peculiarities were almost incapable of defining how he felt, the depth of the feeling that filled him.

"Did you feel it, before Dean changed you?" Sam had asked.

Castiel had stirred the embers with a stick.

"I would never believe that he forced you to feel these things...Dean...I don't think he himself understands the depth of a bond between two mated skinwalkers. Our parents were not an example of the union, and we have never met another like ourselves." Sam frowned into the fire. "but, if he forced you, into...if he held you, by force, and mated you...and changed you, without your consent..."

"I wasn't in the position to consent." Castiel had informed him, then, spurred by Sam's aghast expression. "I was about to be spirited away to a stranger's home...Dean protected me. He gave me everything he could."

"And he may have given you his feelings." Sam had exclaimed, "Accidentally, fed you with them, as he strengthened your body...these things you feel, might not be natural."

Castiel had looked at him, and wondered whether there was truth in Sam's words. Whether these things he felt for Dean were really his to feel, or just reflections. Dean hadn't questioned it, had seen Castiel's acquiescence to be inevitable, but...Castiel got the feeling there was more to it than that. He had seen himself through Dean's eyes, practically gilded with affection.

Whatever Dean saw through him, pleased him greatly.

"All my life, I have been told what to feel." Castiel reminds Sam. "Told what is natural, and unnatural, how certain feelings are sinful...now, there is only this. What I feel. And it is me, a part of me. I know you worry, that you didn't want to leave us alone. You were afraid. But, I've never been entrusted with my own safe keeping before...and, I don't think I was mistaken, when I gave myself to him. Before, he changed me."

Sam had looked into the fire, a frown of thought etched on his face.

"I would die for him." Castiel had said. "And I would kill for him. For all of you...I have done."

"And yet you do not feel guilt, as any other man would."

"I feel it." Castiel had assured him. "As I feel it over the love I have for him...I merely resist it. I do not let it control me." He had looked deeply into the darkened forest. "I have been through much, and travelled further than I'd care to...and I have earned the right to be my own master."

"Then why submit to him?"

"I think submitting to be loved...it's a privilege." Castiel had mused. "Maybe I've earned that too."

Sam had left it at that, apparently satisfied. Castiel was not fooled. Sam still thought him a slave to Dean's projected emotions, a captive, a victim of Dean's possessiveness. Perhaps, one day, Castiel would be able to convince him of his autonomy.

Until then, unease often circled them as they in turn circled the fire. Waiting for one of them to venture into the dark.


	2. Chapter 2

_Sorry, lots of uni work on at the moment. But, this is for BHJ, to maybe cheer her up a little. _

Sam forgets.

That's the idiotic thing, the thing he blames himself for. He has lived his entire life in the shadow of an Alpha. First his father, and subsequently, Dean. He has lived with rules and codes of conduct, unspoken and ingrained like the impulse to survive.

But he forgets, just once, and it's enough to earn him a bite on his left flank, and a stunning blow to the face.

It's all because Castiel is slicing meat for their evening meal, stripping venison from the carcass of a small deer with a hunting knife, gloved in blood to his elbows. Dean lies at his feet, snatching up scraps and entrails, crunching bones. Dean might be content to let Castiel prepare the food, but he stays close to him, closer even than he had kept Castiel before their capture. This insistent, watchfulness worries Sam, and he wonders more than ever if Castiel is willing, or just a prisoner.

The meat Castiel drops into the skillet spits and hisses, the hot metal searing the flesh and producing the enticing smell of cooking flesh. They're outside, on a rocky outcrop a little way above the sight of their burrow, where the smoke is dispersed by the canopy of the forest. It's almost entirely dark anyway, the leaping flames of the fire are the only light for miles, obscured from outside sight by the trees.

Sam sits with Jess, and Joshua, letting Jessica lean against his side as they both watch over the baby. He's content, happier than he has been in a long time – with his mate at his side, and her child in his arms. This is the feeling he had craved for all those years spent in Dean's company – the softness of his own family, the right to protect them, to be admired by them.

Joshua starts to snuffle in his blanket, and then begins to cry. Jessica shushes him, but the infant continues to squall. Sam goes to the fireside and looks about for a fresh napkin for the baby. Castiel touches his hand lightly with his bloodied one.

"Lavender, and camomile, in the milk or some warm water. It's what I had as a child, to keep me from weeping." Castiel gestures to the small woven basket in which they keep their crocks of medicines and poultices. "There should be some."

"Thank you." Sam retrieves the small, dried flowers from their birch bark wrappings. These are herbs brought from Jess's own kitchen garden in England. He places them carefully in a small pot and waits by the fire while Jessica changes their son. "I didn't know...how wonderful this would feel."

Castiel looks at the small bundle of blanket, which is waving one tightly curled pink fist in the air, and gurgling merrily. "You must be very happy."

Sam nods, his hand closing on Castiel's stained one, where it toys nervously with the handle of the skillet. "You will have a chance to know...if it's right, you will find your family."

Castiel shakes his head.

Sam squeezes his hand. "I know it."

And that's when Dean jumps at him.

Sam's stunned, Dean has never attacked him with this ferocity, beyond a warning nip, a defensive struggle, Dean has never harmed him before. But now, he bares his bloody teeth and snarls, pinning Sam to the rock floor. The precious dried blooms are scattered to the floor, flaring in the fire with a pungent scent. Castiel cries out, and Jessica whimpers in fear. She is not yet used to the way their kind works.

Sam struggles, and Dean cuffs him across the face with one heavy paw, leaving three bloody scratches, and a throbbing pain in Sam's jaw. Sam shivers into his change almost instantly, using it as a distraction to wriggle away. But he's not fast enough, and Dean clamps vicious teeth into his flank. Sam cries out, staggering, but Dean sinks his teeth in deeper, and growls, blood dripping over his snout and onto the ground. Sam struggles, feeling his flesh rip, kicking out to try and get away.

It's Castiel who finally comes between them. One moment, Sam is struggling for what might be the last moment before his leg is wrenched from the socket, and the next, a strong, quick paw patters at Dean's jaws, forcing them open with a thin dribble of bloody saliva. Dean is thrown to his side, snarling and growling, but Castiel stands firmly over Sam's body. Sam has flattened himself to the ground, his leg limp on the rock, blood dripping from him as he whimpers.

Jessica is crying, and Joshua bawls in her arms.

Dean stares at Castiel and Sam, eyes huge and blind with rage, practically black with it. His teeth are bared, covered in blood, his ears flattened to his skull, and his back prickling with raised hairs.

For a second, Sam doesn't dare breath, just closes his eyes in the shelter of Castiel's bulk and waits for Dean to lunge.

Then Dean lowers his head, turns, and bolts into the blackness.

(-*-)

Dean leaps a small pile of stones and stumbles to a trot, until finally, he stops. The forest around him is dark, and as silent as it ever gets. A cold wind ruffles his fur, doing nothing to cool the white hot rage that still grips his whole body. He shifts back, hoping to find some rest from the fierce anger, trying to find some of the love he feels for Sam. Felt. Feels.

But in human form, he's gripped by shame and regret and despair. And it all hurts to much to even breathe. What he's just done to Sam, to Castiel, and Jessica. He's scared them, hurt Sam. He still wants to hurt them.

He has nothing, and Sam...Sam has everything.

He wipes a hand at his mouth, desperate to remove the blood there. Sam's blood. But it's all over his mouth, covering his teeth.

He shifts restlessly, becoming a wolf once more, dropping his snout to the ground and licking the bitter dirt. Still he can taste blood in his mouth.

Dean turns in a circle, whining to himself as he surveys the darkened trees.

He's a poor Alpha, and he knows it now. His father led them, a good pack leader, he'd kept them in line and taken care of them. Dean...he can't even keep his place without ripping in to Sam. Sam who can build the pack up with pups...children. Dean tries to remember being human – remember the words for babies and children. Husbands, wives – not mates.

It sits on the surface of his brain, refusing to penetrate. He's a wolf. He thinks like one. Not like Sam, who can be a man, and think like one as well.

Dean can't bring more pups to the pack, he's a bad Alpha, a poor mate who can't even depend on the support of Castiel, which should be his by right.

He looks out into the trees. Maybe...maybe it would have been better, after he'd killed the yellow-eyed man...if he'd never returned. If Sam had become an Alpha. Rearing his own pack.

If Dean had stayed lone.

He smells Castiel before he sees him. In the distance he can hear paws racing on the earth, then a short silence, followed by the more hesitant fall of human feet. Castiel passes him by in the trees, and Dean presses himself to the ground, not wanting to be discovered. Of course it's pointless to try, Castiel can sense him just as well as Dean can sense his mate in return.

Castiel approaches from his other side, clear creek water held in his cupped hands. Dean supposes he must have tasted the dirt in his mouth through their bond. He tries to bury his feelings, to stop them from seeping through their connection.

Dean stays belly down on the dirt and whines.

"Sam's alright now...he'll heal anyway." Castiel says, carefully sitting and holding out his hands, pressing the joined fingers to Dean's lips and pouring the water steadily. Dean parts his jaws and allows the water to sluice away the worst of the earth and blood.

Dean lowers his head back to the ground afterwards.

"You feel bad, about what happened."

Dean wuffs, low and muted by the dirt under his nose.

"Why did you do it? I've never known you to attack him." Castiel says softly.

Dean rumbles deep in his chest, feeling his anger creeping back.

"I wish you'd talk to me."

The change is almost instinctive. He can feel how much Castiel needs him to be human, and he responds to it, allowing his wolf form to dissipate. He picks himself up from the floor and sits in an awkward crouch.

"We are not like Sam and Jessica." Dean says finally.

"No, we're not." Castiel sighs. "Is that what this is about?"

Dean glares at the ground.

"Sam will have children, with Jessica." Castiel tells him. "We both know that we will not...does that...do you wish you could, have them?"

Dean looks at him. "I'm the Alpha."

He can see that Castiel understands, just from that, exactly what's been going through his mind.

"You could...find someone else." Castiel says, hesitantly.

Dean looks at him fiercely. "No."

"'No', just like that?"

"You're my mate." Dean says, and it's a fact of his existence, like Sam being his brother, or his great-great-grandfather being a tribe elder. It's something he can't change. "I want you to be."

Castiel looks down at the ground. "Even though I'm not giving you what you need?"

"What..." Dean struggles, he can't quite manage to find the right way to explain that, for most of the time, there is more than one Dean. But only one Castiel. There's the Dean that he is now, the human Dean, and he loves Castiel, more than Dean has ever loved anything. There's the wolf, which knows that Castiel belongs to it, and which loves him fiercely as a mate. But, the wolf also knows that it needs cubs, that Castiel is standing in the way of that.

There's love, and desire, and ownership. But, also the instinct that runs against it, the instinct that tells him to defend his place as Alpha by any means necessary, and to find someone he can breed with as soon as he can.

"What I need isn't what I want." Dean says finally. "I'm not just a wolf, just instincts. I can choose."

It's like he's trying to remind himself, as well as reassure Castiel.

Castiel looks at him for a long time, as if not entirely sure that he believes him, that he believes that Dean is stronger than the sum of his instincts.

Dean isn't entirely sure himself.

"Yes, you can."Castiel says finally. "I just hope you don't have to."


	3. Chapter 3

_Sorry, lots of uni work on at the moment. Also, I don't know if this actually needs stating, because it should be pretty obvious :P I know dick about native Americans, all my information is general and sourced from the net – so it is probably not accurate._

Things within their group are uneasy, and then a stranger comes into their midst, stirring up trouble the way a poker stirs up sparks.

Dean senses it first, getting to his feet and glaring out into the darkness. He's in his human form, so he does not growl, only waits for the stranger to approach. The nagging scent of something familiar come from the night.

Castiel is by his side soon after, Sam hangs back warily. Dean wants Sam to stand by him, to not be afraid of him anymore. Unfortunately, forgiveness cannot be commanded, and there's no instinct for it in their make up. All things in time.

The stranger comes within sight, and Dean is instantly wary. The man, for it is a man, has the markings of his father's tribe. The tattoo on his chest, a star surrounded by flames. There are pocks of scar tissue on his chest and arms, one of his eyes is completely covered by a swatch of tattered fabric. The man is wearing nothing aside from a pair of fraying breeches. Settler clothing.

He stops just in front of the cave where they are making their bed for the night, and kneels.

Dean stands up and walks towards him.

"Why're you here?" he says, forgetting that the other man won't speak English. He's surprised when the stranger answers.

"You're John's son?"

Dean blinks. John was not his Father's given name, their mother had given him the name of John when they had begun their relationship – a gesture of compromise, she had been given her own native name in turn, Onida, the one searched for. John had once been Hohnihohkaiyohos, High-backed wolf. Just as Sam had been born Honiahaka, little wolf, and Dean, Ocumwhowurst, yellow wolf. They'd kept their English names, inherited from Mary's grandfathers, to honour her passing.

He hadn't known that anyone in John's village had known of his new name.

"I am."

"You are to come with me. To Croatoan."

The name of their father's village. Why would they want him there? Dean inhales again. The familiarity lingers. This man is a blood relative of their father, distant, but still connected.

"Why?"

The man looks grave. "Because we are at war."

Dean doesn't need to ask with who. There's only one enemy now, all the wars between their own people are being swallowed by the settler's steady advancement into their territories.

"We need fighters, men who..." the man pauses, looking past Dean and catching sight of Sam. He inhales. "You are John's son as well?"

Sam must nod.

Castiel approaches, laying his hand on Dean's shoulder. The stranger flinches back a little.

"You have a settler here..." he sniffs. "You've mated with him."

"And you can shut your mouth about that." Dean practically growls.

The stranger doesn't say anything, but his eyes stay on Castiel, mistrustful and wary.

"We'll come with you." Sam says, "And I'll bring my mate and her son."

The stranger nods, accepting this. "My name is Wakiza*'

Dean snorts, though it isn't that funny.

It takes almost no time to gather their meagre possessions, place the baby in a sling, and go along with Wakiza. He speaks animatedly with Sam about the tension between Croatoan and the neighbouring settler village. He pointedly does not talk to Castiel, and offers only the briefest of words to Dean. This rankles, he's the alpha, he should be the one to be addressed by the stranger. Not Sam. Castiel touches his arm, sensing his growing anger, trying to keep him calm.

"You have a name, like his." Castiel says.

Dean nods. "Ocumwhowurst. Yellow-wolf"

"It fits you."

"My father chose it...there's never been a yellow-wolf in his line before, they're all dark brown."

Castiel nods.

"You have one." Dean tells him. "When I call you Cas...it's not just because you're Castiel. It's for where I found you."

It's more than that, it's the colour of his skin, the purity of his spirit, his soul. It's the fact that Castiel came to him with no darkness inside. Only light.

"What is it?"

"Yas." Dean says. "It means snow."

Castiel walks along beside his for a while in silence, but Dean feels the softness seeping through their bond. Contentment, like when he and Castiel have lain together, and separate to lie in the sun, just barely touching under the shade of the trees.

They reach Croatoan fairly quickly. It's only a few miles from their camp, and so small that it's barely noticeable. A long house, and about seven separate tents, one fire outside. It looks more like a camp than a settlement. Wakiza leads them towards the one solid structure, pulling aside a hide curtain and passing through the doorway. He turns and holds up a hand. "The woman and child can go to the fire, the wives are there." He looks at Castiel, "The outsider should go with her."

Dean bristles. "He's one of us."

Wakiza just looks at him.

"I'll go." Castiel murmurs, and he walks at Jessica's side to the fire.

(-*-)

Dean's anger is like a whip lashing the air, and Castiel can sense it from his place by the fireside. He's glad that it is not aimed at him, still, it makes him nervous and angry on Dean's behalf. Jessica approaches the group of women sitting by the fire. One of them smiles.

"I'm Wakiza's wife." She says, "are you with Hohnihohkaiyohos's son?"

"...I'm Sam's wife. Jessica." Jessica says, not knowing who the woman is referring to.

"And you..." the woman looks anxiously to Castiel.

"Casitel...I'm Dean's mate." He says, and feels a stab of vicious pride and excitement through the bond. Dean knows when Castiel is thinking of him, when he is feeling loyal to his mate. The woman, to her credit, does not recoil from him as her husband had done. She looks at the mark on his arm, the mark Dean had left there.

"You must be strong, to have survived that." She says, softly.

Castiel doesn't know what to say to that. He doesn't think he's been particularly strong. It had hurt, he had suffered, but he hadn't had a choice. If, in the midst of all that pain, someone had offered him a way out...he might have taken it.

This is not something he will ever tell Dean. Sam has done too much to question their loyalty and love for each other already.

"I'm Nuna*...you've heard of the settlers, what they're doing to our village?"

"We know you're at war." Castiel says, helping Jessica to sit down without disturbing Joshua.

"We're losing." Nuna says softly. "New Haven has taken so much land from us, so many men have died, now that Crowley is dead..."

Castiel felt a shiver.

"Beluah has joined in the fighting." Nuna finishes.

Castiel freezes at the mention of his village. He had not given much thought to the citizens of Beluah since they had tried to hang him, and yet, now he curses himself for not thinking of them sooner. They were zealous, close to Dean and Sam's territory, and eager to gain more lands. He should have realised this would happen.

He had not thought of the attack that had allowed him to make his escape – the day of the hanging, the day the natives attacked.

"Have they tried to take land from you?"

Nuna smiles thinly. "They tried, but my husband, and the other men, they struck back."

He feels cold. "How? When?"

"They were already a problem, in winter we tried to warn them away, but, when Crowley was killed, they became angry. They tried to take some of the men, to put them on trial. They called us witches."

Castiel can imagine, Zachariah, ever the zealot, would probably have lectured from his pulpit until the villagers were inflamed with talk of devils and witchcraft.

"We attacked them, before dawn." Nuna tells him.

"When?"

"Two days before you came."

Despite himself, he is instantly sickened. He had known those people, and, while they had stood by and allowed him to be tortured and put to death, some were good people.

"Were there survivors?"

Nuna makes an uncertain gesture. "We took the children and the women that we found, they were ransomed to New Haven. But, there was fire, and smoke everywhere. Some could have run, or been lost."

Castiel wants to ask more, to learn what has happened to his former home, but at that moment, a scent disturbs him. It's sickly sweet, like pungent, pollen riddled flowers left to soak in the sun. There's an edge of blood to it, and the deep, dark scent of his own slick, the wetness that Dean's attentions draw out of him.

He looks up, following the source of the smell, spotting a dark haired woman on the edge of the forest.

Nuna follows his gaze.

"Lise*, she is newly grown, not yet mated." She casts her eyes back to Castiel, "Maybe it will be someone from your tribe?"

"They're spoken for." Castiel says, lowly, noticing Jessica's concerned eyes on him.

Nuna shrugs. "The heat, the scent...it does not matter how the head feels. It's the heat, the heart, that decides."

Castiel looks again at Lise, and feels dread clump in his stomach like cold clay. Whatever they have gained by entering the fold of Dean's former clan, he knows that he has much to lose.

If he has not lost it already.

*WAKIZA: desperate warrior

* LISE: Miwok name meaning "salmon head rising above water." – Lisa

*NUNA: land


	4. Chapter 4

_At long last, and update._

_*__WAKIZA: desperate warrior_

_* LISE: Miwok name meaning "salmon head rising above water." – Lisa_

_*NUNA: land_

_Also, to anyone threatening suicide/murder if Dean sleeps with Lisa...seriously, how long have you known me? Dean rarely gets it on with the ladies on my watch. _

Dean and Sam exit the small building with grave faces, and Castiel can feel the heaviness of Dean's heart even through their bond. There's something else to, a frantic sensation, like digging through hot coals with bare hands. Red. Screams. Death. Gun smoke. His mother's death, Castiel is sure of it. For Dean, contact with the settlers has only ever meant death. The death of his mother, of his father, the near loss of Castiel. Dean had almost lost Sam to the human life, which would have meant the death of their pack. Even the trade he did with the humans was rooted in death – that of the animals he'd hunted for their fur.

Castiel looks up at him as he approaches, flanked by Sam and Wakiza. Behind them are three other men, all of whom are older than Dean and looking haggard and worn beyond their years.

Dean comes to crouch beside him.

"Is it war?" Castiel asks.

"New Haven will not be at peace until they have our heads on pikes." Dean tells him.

"But we have done nothing." Castiel knows it's not true, he had murdered Crowley, but he is not responsible for the attack on Beluah.

"We are not like them, that's reason enough for them to hunt us down."

Sam sits down beside Jess and puts an arm around her in comfort.

Wakiza speaks then, "You will stay under our protection, we cannot chance that the settlers will leave the woods untouched."

A broad-chested man, clearly of importance, lays a hand on Wakiza's shoulder and murmurs to him. Wakiza turns back to the fire. "The outsider must stay away from the village."

Dean bristles, and leaps to his feet. "He stays with me."

"He cannot be here while we fight for our freedom, he is one of them, and they will either be fuelled by their desire to save him, or filled with anger at his betrayal. Either way, it will only make them more ferocious." Said the broad man, the leader of the village, Castiel realised.

"My brother's mate is also one of them, yet she can stay?"

"She would not survive alone...he is built for it." Wakiza says, some spite evident in his words.

"If he goes, I go." Dean growls, "and my pack with me."

"Your pack?" asks the Alpha, "I thought..." he looks at Sam, only for a second, taking in the baby in Jessica's arms, and that second is clearly enough for Dean.

He seems to grow in his anger, not transforming, just tensing and becoming like a shadow, a man carved out of the darkness, bristling with knives and anger. Castiel crouches at his side, the outsider, the mongrel, the useless mate.

Sam holds Jess close, not taking his eyes off his brother.

The scent is there again, as quick as a rabbit diving from under a berry bush, the scent of fire and flowers and blood. Dean's head jerks towards it, and Castiel looks up at him, his mate, his God in the firelight...fixated on something else. Someone else. His eyes intent and dark.

Lise appears in the circle of firelight, an apparition. The chief looks between them, and mutters something to Wakiza, who jerks with a snap of humour. Castiel feels his face burn. They can see the strange magic of fertility and nature working between Dean and the young woman of their camp. Castiel accidentally catches Sam's eye, and the pity, the sorrow there, is like swallowing thorns.

"Lise." The chief says, "These are our lost sons."

Lise smiles warmly, but her eyes never leave Dean, who has not stopped staring at her.

"Perhaps the two of you would like to sleep in Lise's camp." Wakiza says shrewdly. "She keeps a bower on the edge of the woods, very comfortable." He looks to Sam and Jessica, "You may sleep in one of the empty shelters, our numbers are not so great as they once were."

Castiel is excluded, and Dean doesn't say a word. He aches inside at this betrayal, this silence, that kills him inside, like a dose of poison.

The look on Dean's face is one of complete fixation. With his eyes on Lise, his whole body is tense with the prospect of, well, Castiel knows that look. He'd seen it in the eyes of a wolf not long ago, and then again on Dean's human face. The look of desire, the intense need to possess, the urge to mate. The fixation that blocks out everything else – Sam, the winter, the loss of his father...

And now Castiel is on the outside of that searing attention.

Forgotten.

Useless.

Castiel draws back from the fire, and stands. He can't stay here, that has been made very clear since the moment Jessica came into their lives. He cannot give Dean children, he is not of Dean's species or tribe, and now he has been rejected by his people.

He has to go.

Sam looks at him, and shakes his head, almost imperceptibly. Castiel favours him with a hard, desperate look. This is how it has to be. He sees that now. Dean will have his pups, his mate. And Castiel will return to his own people. To Beluah, to scrape out a place for himself amongst the ashes of his former life.

Perhaps he should have died in the snow all those months before.

Perhaps he cheated fate.

And now it is time to lose the prize that he did not deserve.

With a lead weight on his shoulders, he walks away from the fire. Praying with every step that Dean will grab his shoulder, throw him to the earth and make him stay. Make him feel like he belongs again.

Nothing and nothing happens. Yet Castiel expects Dean's touch long after he has left the village, and the sight of the fire far behind him.

(-*-)

Sam can see the very instant in which Dean wakes from his heat induced trance and notices that Castiel is gone. One moment Dean has deep, black eyes only for Lise, his nose drawing in the scent that Sam himself can detect, but which has almost no effect on him – the scent of a female ready to mate, looking for a male to keep by her side for when her pups are born. The next second, Dean twists away from her, leaving Lise with a disappointed frown on her face. Dean looks to his side, and, seeing the empty space where Castiel should be, he turns to Sam.

"He's left us." Sam tells him.

For all that Sam has been gritting his teeth at his brother's callous distraction from his mate, he cannot help but go cold inside at the utter terror on Dean's face when he realises that Castiel has abandoned him.

Dean leaps away from the fire, dropping down into his wolf form as he goes, already sensing, trying to reach Castiel through their bond.

As Dean scrambles into the forest, Sam feels as if he should go with him, but the presence of Jess and her baby keeps him grounded. This is between Dean and Castiel. This is not his mistake to correct.

Wakiza's eyes follow Dean to the tree line. "Your brother is a strange animal. His mind seems touched."

Sam looks up at him, barely restraining a growl. "My brother, is not an animal."

As for the rest...Sam cannot say for certain what Dean's mind is like. It's a strange country that has not been open to him for a long time. He only hopes that Castiel can fathom it.

(-*-)

Dean follows the pull of his bond to Castiel through the darkened forest. He can feel him, his pain, the sinking black hole of his despair and abandonment. Dean tries to send him his worry, his need for Castiel to come back, forcing all the fierce adoration that he can into their connection. Desperate for Castiel to know that he belongs at the fireside, with Dean. It's his place.

The scent of Lise still lingers, even on his fur, and Dean tries to shake it off, ashamed, angered by his shame and needing Castiel more than ever. He wants to wreath himself in Castiel's scent again, wear him proudly as a talisman against the temptation of Lise's ripeness.

Something in that scent had whispered to him, drawing him in with the promise of union and bloody birth. Pups with his scent on them, that had the same blood in their veins.

It was only the tiny part of him, the human part, that had shaken off his daze. The part of him that wanted Castiel in his arms, wanted to snuffle the skin on the back of his neck and keep him close.

And now Castiel is gone.

Dean almost falls to the forest floor when he feels Castiel respond to him through their bond. At first he's unbearably happy to have finally found him, even if there's only the vaguest tickle of misery at the edge of his mind.

But then something happens, something that Dean doesn't have the words to articulate how awful it feels.

One moment the bond is there – as concrete as the bond he shares with Sam. As strong as his own body. As real as the ground under him.

The next moment, Castiel has taken a knife to it.

Dean's legs crumple under him, sending him to the ground in a sprawl, his heart turns sick in his chest and everything in him screams hoarsely for this feeling to stop. For Castiel to leave the bond alone and come back to him.

But the feeling doesn't stop.

It only gets worse.

(-*-)

Castiel is lying on the ground, his whole body seized and tense, as he tries to shut out Dean and his thoughts. He can't take the strength of will that Dean has, the intensity with which Dean wants him now, compared to the complete indifference of not too long ago. The two extremes hurt too much.

Pulling away from the bond hurts more than anything he has ever felt.

It's like he's laying a razor to a thick tendon inside himself, slowly cutting the fibrous nerves. Agony takes up almost all of his awareness, as he digs his love out of himself.

The only other thing he's aware of is Dean, screaming. He can hear it through the bleeding bond, one long, agonized howl of despair and loss.

Until it is abruptly silenced.

And Castiel is left, alone in the dark, sobbing onto the cold ground, wracked with pain and guilt.


	5. Chapter 5

When Dean gets to his feet, it's morning, and Sam is nosing at his side.

Dean's whole body aches, and he feels like there's something...wrong, inside of him. Like a sharp stone sewn in under his skin. Only, the wrong-thing is something that isn't there, that should be. He never knew an absence could hurt as much as a painful intrusion. That loss could be like gaining an arrow in his side.

Sam whimpers as Dean's legs shake and he almost falls.

Dean shakes himself, but his very skin feels wrong. He shifts, human skin replacing his furred hide. But it still feels wrong. Wrong wrong, all wrong. He doesn't have a shape that will feel right. Because man or wolf, he is still missing his mate, his bond...the wolf cries out in anger and pain for the mate that it's lost, and even his human heart aches with misery.

Castiel is gone.

Gone. Gone. Gone.

He doesn't even realise he's saying it aloud until Sam shifts and lays his hands on his shoulders.

"You couldn't find him?"

Dean looks at him, feeling at the same time like a waking drunkard and a dying man. "He's gone."

Sam's face takes on a look of panic. "You can't feel him?"

Dean presses a hand to his own chest, to the broken place where Castiel's presence used to resonate. He can't articulate how it feels, what happened. The bond is not a physical thing, it shouldn't be able to be sliced and removed. But it has been. And Castiel is the one who cut it out.

Sam just looks at him, afraid and worried. "Dean? What happened?"

"It's gone." Dean says. "Castiel, me and Castiel – it's gone."

At last Sam seems to understand. And it is a good thing he does, because Dean can't talk anymore.

He wishes that he'd never woken up.

(-*-)

Castiel feels like he's bleeding to death.

There are no wounds on him, he's checked, and yet it feels as if, moment by moment, he is losing something life giving. It's flowing out of him, hurting as it goes, and he doesn't know if it'll ever stop.

He drags himself along through the forest, leaning on trees and forcing himself to keep moving. He dares not change into his other form. He knows it'll only hurt more.

All he wants to do is lie down to die.

Because he knows the loss of Dean will kill him. It's only a matter of how long he can last like this.

He walks for two days in the vague direction of Beluah, it seems that since he'd changed into his new self he was incapable of losing his way in the forest. In any case, he can smell the smoke as he draws near, and it's left black smuts and a fine film over the surrounding vegetation.

The sky is growing dark overhead as he looks upon the ruins of his former home. Nothing could have prepared him for it.

The earth is scorched, the remaining grass crumbling as he sets foot on it. The cabins are burnt out shells, stuck over with arrows and cleaved apart as if by giant hands. The settlers had put up a fight clearly, but they had been overwhelmed. The ground was pitted with musket fire, both sides must have used guns. The village store is empty, and mostly destroyed. Strangely, the church in the centre of the settlement seems almost untouched. Perhaps the invaders had known enough to attack only the houses that night, and left the empty church to rot slowly.

Castiel inspects the buildings with a growing sense of despair. He has torn himself free of his new, happy life, in order to return to what he once was. Only, he is now a different species entirely, and his former home is nothing but ashes and black, crumbling wood.

He finds a nightshirt trampled on the ground, and picks it up, pulling it over his head to cover his animal nakedness. He feels the desperate need to become human – properly human, again. To be the kind of man who wears clothes and shoes and washes with soap in a basin. Perhaps the kind of man who might take a wife, and have children to care for in his house...

His stomach twists as if confronted once more with the sight of Crowley's corpse. He bends over the blackened ground and heaves, his head swimming with nausea and pain. The sensation of bleeding rears its head again.

"God" Castiel chokes, feeling bile burn his throat. He isn't sure if he's cursing the pain or begging for help. But either way, he goes unnoticed.

As night falls Castiel finds the least charred of the buildings and crawls under the fallen lintel, searching through the ashen debris for the hatch into the root cellar. He feels cold and pathetic. Now that he has re-entered the human world, he is aware of how little he has. One torn and stolen garment to his name. No money, no food and no relatives or friends. He is lower than even a begger. _Too low for the dogs to bite_, as one old woman from Beluah used to say. The odd phrase makes him feel sick – that woman might well be dead, and Castiel is lower even than a dog, too low for them to notice.

With Dean, Castiel tries not to think it, but does anyway, with Dean, he had not needed money or clothes, or stores of food. The forest was there, providing nourishment, and they had walked naked as in Eden, tasting the spoils of the untended earth.

_And now it's time to pay for that sin_, some dark, zealous part of him whispers.

Castiel feels his way through the darkness of the root cellar, searching for a place to sleep. Only the sound of a muffled squall makes him pause.

He waits, listening, his heart thumping. The sound comes again.

Peering into the darkness, Castiel sees a blurred, white shape. A woman, he realises, in a nightgown. He gets closer, seeing that she looks half dead, her skin coated in ash, her hair greasy and dirty, and her lips are papery and dry. But he had heard her.

As he gets closer, she opens her eyes weakly, and lets out a parched cry that might have been intended as a scream.

Castiel recognises her now that her eyes are open, they're the bright green of summer grass. Katherine Evans. Wife of selectman John Evans. If her rounded belly is anything to go by, it seems as if their attempts to conceive a fourth child were successful.

"Katherine, it's me, Castiel."

"Get away." She hisses.

"Are you alright?"

"Witch!" she spits, trying to move further away from him.

"I was never a witch, I was only one alone amongst the many." Castiel says, "Tell me, are you injured."

She glares at him, "No."

"Then why are you still down here? You could leave now, travel to New Haven, to safety."

"I'm..." Katherine's bitter expression wavers, and suddenly she begins to sob. Castiel looks at her, unsure whether attempting to comfort her will only upset her further. "I think I'm...hurt." she whimpers.

"Where?"

She looks instantly terrified. "I have done a terrible thing, God has punished me."

"Katherine, where are you hurt?"

The squalling sound comes again, and part of Katherine's nightgown moves. Castiel watches in amazement as Katherine lifts a piece of cloth, revealing the baby resting against her side, it's cord still attached to its belly, dried and wrinkled. The baby, a boy, begins to cry in earnest.

"He won't stop." Katherine says, crying herself. "I can't feed him, I have nothing, and...I'm polluted."

"Katherine..." Castiel stops, and reaches out, picking up the baby. Katherine doesn't react, she is panicking too much to care about her infant, too frightened to remain suspicious of him. The baby is in need of a feed, and it's naked body is still crusted with blood from the birth. Excrement is plastered to the back of its legs, and it's skin is sore and flaking. It's a sorry specimen to be sure. Castiel removes his nightshirt and wraps the baby in it.

"I will find some food for him, and bathe him. But I need to know, how are you hurt?"

She looks at him with wide, terrified eyes, and he realises too late that his nakedness might threaten her.

"Below." She says.

Castiel just looks at her, not understanding. She whimpers. "Below, where the baby came, I am...cut, and there is a scent of...putrefaction." she starts to cry again, "I have done a wicked thing...I should never have allowed him to touch me. But...he was so powerful."

Castiel doesn't need to hear anymore, there were stories, whisperings, of selectman Tyler, one of the principle land owners, catching the women of the settlement, and the women of the towns they went to for market, unawares. Forcing them into acts that the women were not prepared for, and had not consented to.

"I think I shall need to see how bad it is." Castiel murmurs gravely.

Katherine doesn't protest, but she continues to cry as he lifts her legs and parts them, pushing aside the heavy linen nightgown. The birth had indeed damaged her, even Castiel, a stranger to these parts of a woman, could see that. The fleshly parting was extended by a raw section of ripped flesh, which was crusted with old blood and ash, and smelt like a butchers in summer. He freezes as he sees something else, a tinge of green to the surrounding flesh.

Rot. Gangrenous rot has set in. He looks up at Katherine's tear streaked face, and realises that there is nothing he can do to save her. He knows nothing of medicine, and were he to take her to a doctor, the nearest being in New Haven, she would most likely die on the way, or after being hacked apart by a practitioner of physic.

"Is it very terrible?" she asks.

"I think..." Castiel hesitates, torn between wanting to spare her the burden of her own death, and wanting to tell her the truth, to not give her false hope. "It is beyond my skill, to fix such a wound."

"The doctor, in New Haven..." she says, then stops, realising what Castiel had already determined.

"I am very sorry Katherine."

He lays her nightgown down and looks at her. "I can scavenge the village, find food, something for the pain...perhaps I could try to treat you..."

She cuts him off. "Take care of him." She says, nodding at the bundle on the floor between them. "Please...I can't, and he cries...he cries and I cannot help."

"Katherine, I can't leave you."

"You will...but first..." she suppresses a sob, her weak voice cracking. "First...please find the rifle John left down here...don't leave me to waste to death."

Castiel is certain that, were he fully human, he could never do what he does next.

But, with animal nature in his mind, he takes the baby to the upper portion of the house, then returns, drags out the rifle, and while Katherine sobs brokenly to herself, he shoots her in the head.

Outside, Castiel carries the baby with him as he searches for supplies. There is little to nothing in the houses, but he finds a clean altar cloth in the church, plain white and the only decorative thing in the building. He washes the baby in ashy rain water, and wraps it tight in the clean cloth, using the nightshirt as a napkin. There is one terrified brown goat in the ruins of the Tyler house, and Castiel feeds the child directly from the animal. Until at last the baby has supped enough, and curls it's tiny pink hands in restfulness.

Castiel takes refuge in the church, shutting the goat in with him for safety, and hiding under the pulpit with the baby in his arms, a sheet of canvas drawn over himself for warmth. The small life depending on him is a comfort against the yawning ache of his loss. The child might not be his, but now it belongs to him, and he will care for it.

He realises that the baby has no name.

With its warm, soft face against his chest, he lays a hand on its head, and christens it, Abel.


	6. Chapter 6

Sam realises that he cannot take Dean back to the village in his current condition. Dean is almost too weak to stand, let along walk the way back. Besides, Wakiza and the others already think he's strange enough, adding fuel to the fire of their suspicion will not help matters.

Dean is silent, hunched at the base of a tree, naked and prickled over with goose flesh, Sam, clad in his warm wolfs coat, feels a shiver just looking at him. He shifts reluctantly, sitting beside his brother, and trying to think of the words that will do right by his good intentions. He does not want to cast empty platitudes into the chasm of Dean's heart. He wants to help to close it, to make some attempt at mending the raw wound that practically screams in pain.

"I never wanted to feel this." Dean says eventually.

Sam starts at the sudden sound. The forest around them has grown dark, and even the small animals and birds are silent, as if sensing the broken wrongness of the creature in their midst.

"Losing him?" Sam asks.

"Anything." Dean's voice is savage, and his body tenses with the force of his emotions.

Sam doesn't know what to say to that. Dean has never spoken extensively about emotions, or anything connected with them. For five years he hadn't spoken at all, and Sam is still getting used to this comparative garrulousness.

"We can't help it. Everyone feels." He says.

Dean gives him a black look. "Why does it hurt? Even when it felt good, it still hurt."

"It's a part of being human."

"Then I don't want to be human." Dean snarls, he gets up off the ground and looks down at his hands, at his legs and body. "I hate it. I hated every minute I've ever been like this. I want...I wish I'd been born a wolf. Just a wolf. Nothing in between."

Sam's starting to see now, all the cracks in his brother, leading back to a single point of impact, one solitary wound.

"That's why you didn't turn back, for all those years?"

Dean grits his teeth. "I hate it." He spits, by way of answer.

"You didn't want to feel...anything? Or this?" Sam asks. "Losing your mate?"

Dean doesn't look at him, casts his eyes instead to the trees around them.

"That's why...you didn't want to lose someone."

"Would you've?" Dean looks at him, exhaustion, pain etched into his face. "How long were our parents mated together? A few years? Barely any time...and how long did he ache afterwards?"

"Father, loved our mother..." Sam begins.

"And when she died, he died too. He broke." Dean snaps, "and it all went away – love, summer...he was never at peace again, not until he was killed. That, is what human love is." Dean's face twists in disgust, "It's a madness. And it kills, from the inside out."

"It doesn't have to."

"It. Does." Dean says stubbornly.

"Only because you threw him away." Sam retorts, then realises what he's done, the violent storm of anger that he may have provoked. "Alpha..." he starts, already flinching back, penitent.

Dean shakes his head, first almost dreamlike, then harder, violent. "No."

"Nothing has changed. You are still my Alpha." Sam promises. "No matter what the Chief, or the others say, I would never..."

"Take it." Dean says softly, so softly that Sam thinks he must be hearing things – the flutter of a wing on the wind.

"Dean..."

"I said, take it!" Dean shouts, his voice like a tree cracking under a flash of lightning. "I don't want it!"

Sam cannot help how his eyes widen, his entire body responding with utter disbelief, and something else – fear. Dean had been his alpha ever since he returned, a winter thin wolf with weeks old blood clotting his fur, the blood of the man who had killed their parents. Only then had Sam known that their father was truly dead – and that Dean was his new alpha. From that moment on, Dean had had his complete obedience, his loyalty. It had already been his anyway. Sam had loved his brother since he was born, since before he knew anything other than the furry body of Dean that was - a pup himself, against his own fat baby limbs.

And now Dean doesn't want his position as Alpha. Throws it away with his words as one might throw a stone into pool. As easily as tossing a stick into a fire.

Dean does not want _him, _Sam realises. His loyalty, his fraternity, is not enough to make up for the loss of Castiel. It can only worsen the loss by ineptly dressing the wound.

"You don't mean that." Sam says, not wanting to know what he already does – that Dean does not need him, or want him now.

"I do." Dean swallows and looks at him, helpless in his own agony. "Take it, it's yours."

"You're the Alpha...you're _my_ Alpha."

Dean looks at him as if Sam is speaking some other language. As if nonsense words are falling from his mouth.

"I'm nothing." Dean says.

"No..."

"I don't want to be your Alpha. Or anyone's." Dean says, his breath taking the words as a long stream from his chest, where they have been brewing these past hours. "I don't want to be human. I don't want to think, or feel...if I could cut this human heart out of me, I would."

"Dean..." Sam starts, taking a step forwards, knowing that something cataclysmic is about to happen.

His brother looks him in the eye.

"Make a better alpha than me. Make him proud." Dean says, "And don't look for me."

He's shifted into his animal form and bolted into the forest before Sam can take his next breath.

Sam knows he won't be able to catch him.

Dean has been running for so long – what hope does he have of competing?

(-*-)

Dean runs, and tries to shed his thoughts.

He'd done it before. For five years he had not thought, or spoken, or walked as a man. He had forgotten so much. Left so much behind.

And Castiel had made him remember. Relearn how to think and feel and act as a man should. Hoe to speak with the fully human language of words, only words. How to go about his loving like a human man. Castiel had made him human again.

Now he had to forget again.

He only wished that he could do it all at once.

He feels no better now than he had before, and he's been running for a long time. It's dark, and cold, and still his mind is not still and calm. It's full and buzzing with thoughts, with all the thinking he doesn't want to do.

There's a new pang in his chest whenever he thinks of Sam. He did not want to leave his little-wolf. He has been Sam's protector since their father died, his Alpha. And even before that he had loved Sam fiercely with everything he had. Sam is his blood, there's nothing he wouldn't give to be able to go back to him, back to his pack, and watch over them again.

But he cannot be with them, without thinking of Castiel, and he cannot think of Castiel without something black and cold threatening to swallow him whole.

So he goes alone into the night, trembling with his own weakness and pain, unable to keep his whimpers from slipping out.

When he catches Castiel's scent on the night wind, he almost lies down to die. It feels good, it's a relief, but it hurts all the same.

His paws take him towards it, stumbling in their haste.


	7. Chapter 7

_So, so tired, no proofreading, sorry. _

Castiel sleeps and wakes in the dark.

Under the church, in a shallow, primitive crypt that was built to keep the bodies of the town's rich from being disturbed by wolves and other predators, Castiel shelters his young one.

Abel is a strong boy, and shows no sign of weakening. Castiel feeds him with goats milk and dresses him in clean pieces of torn clothing, tending to him whenever he fouls himself. The baby wakes him with his cries during the night, and Castiel uncoils himself (for he sleeps in a ball with the baby in his arms, to keep Abel warm) to feed or change the infant, and sometimes, just to hold him.

It's lonely, for the few days he spends in the dark, earthen crypt he does nothing but tend to Abel, and lie on the dirt floor with him while he sleeps. He has no purpose other than caring for the baby. He does not think of anything outside of his own shadowy burrow.

Then, light returns.

The trapdoor in the church's floor opens, sending weak sunlight down on him, and jerking him from sleep. Abel senses his movement and squalls. Castiel looks up into the square of daylight, fearful for the child, caring nothing for himself in the face of this unknown possibility of danger.

"Are you injured?" Comes a clear voice. British. A settler.

Castiel freezes, not knowing if he should reply or not. At length the decision is taken out of his hands.

"I'm coming down."

Two leather booted feet drop into view, and a human, male body slithers down into the darkness.

"How long have you been down here, eh?" asks the man, a settler in strange tight breeches, with his overlong hair slicked off of his face. "I thought the place was deserted."

Around his neck are three loops of twine, on which hang, just visible in the gloom, several rings, cups, and other items of portable value.

"You're looting," Castiel accuses.

"Thieving from the dead, that's grave robbing. Not looting." The man tells him, "anyway, it hardly matters to you, or it shouldn't, as I'm the one who's going to rescue you and your fine babe from this grim cavern."

"I'm not in need of rescuing." Castiel says, his voice cracking with disuse.

"Hmm." Says the other man in disbelief. "We'll then, consider it a kidnapping."

The man steps forwards and drags Castiel to his feet. "I have a little camp not to far from here, food, fire and a lovely little tent. I would be honoured, if you, the little beast there, and of course your lovely goat, would join me."

Animal instinct is a thing much overused in human speech. But, in this case it is exactly what Castiel feels. His instincts tell him that, though this small, strange man is a thief, he is not an enemy. Rather, he is a rather unique creature, one that is out for itself in every way, but has no interest in causing harm where harm need not be done.

Castiel climbs up in to the light, clutching Abel carefully. The child is wrapped in a blanket, and Castiel drags with him a grubby shirt to cover his nakedness, and shrugs it on, transferring the baby from arm to arm. Unwilling to put him down. The goat is coaxed out into the daylight, and together they follow on to the camp that the man has made.

He sits down and cheerily prepares a fire, producing a side of cured bacon and slicing it thickly. Castiel's mouth waters, he has not eaten properly in days, only small amounts of milk and scavenged preserves from the basements of ruined homes.

The man catches his hungry look.

"You look as if you haven't eaten in weeks, where have you passed the winter?"

"In a cave."

"Alone?"

Casitel looks into the fire. "In the company of a dreamlike nightmare." Is the only answer he can utter. For the time he spent with Dean and Sam has now the texture of a fantasy, and the shadow of a terribly night terror.

The man looks at him intently. "And the baby, is it yours?"

"That of a woman who lived here." Casitel indicates the ruins. "She died."

"This would be the selfsame woman I happened upon under one of the cabins...the one with the rifle shot through her forehead and the remains of a birth left to dry on the stone?"

Castiel feels a flare of guilt and shame.

"You did her a kindness." The man tells him gravely, "this world is not kind to the injured and weaponless. I have learnt that."

"What it your name?" Castiel asks.

"Wisakedjak" says the man, without hesitation.

"You have one of their names, have you dealt with the natives?" Castiel asked, trying to hide his own awareness of the tribes from the stranger.

"I deal with everyone. Though, most recently I was embroiled with a certain township leader. The lord of New Haven."

Castiel feels his heart freeze. "Crowley?"

"Yes," the man seems pleased that Castiel is so well informed. "I had planned to...well, exact a small amount of penance from him, you might say, for his arrogance and meanness, not to mention the great deflowering of the towns male virgins."

Castiel cannot supress a shudder.

"Imagine my disappointment when I found that he had been ripped asunder by a rogue skinwalker."the man continues, "I suppose it was an apt punishment, rather cruelly entertaining. I salute you."

Fear overtakes the young skinwalker. This man knows what kind of creature he is, and that he killed Crowley. What will happen to him, now that his instincts have betrayed him and led him into this trap?

"You need to fear me Castiel." The man says, causing more fear to spike through Castiel, as he knows he has not told Wisakedjak his name. "we are practically kin."

"You are...like me?"Castiel asks, as Abel wakes from his brief sleep and fusses for food.

The stranger snaps his fingers, and a clay flask of milk, warmed and rich, appears in Castiel's own hand.

"After a fashion."

(-*-)

Dean pads through the forest, exhausted, Castiel's scent is meandering, as if he had wandered aimlessly, or crisscrossed the same path many times to make it difficult to follow. Dean's heart is hardened to the possibility of giving up, of lying down, mateless, to wither into the ground.

He must find Castiel, and weave a bond to freshly connect them, to stop this ugly bleeding of misery and despair within his chest.

But the trails remain indistinct and blurred by time and Castiel's desperate trickery. Dean growls weakly in frustration.

That, is when he notices the rabbit.

A golden rabbit, almost glowing in the dim undergrowth, looking at him with hazel eyes.

Dean growls at it, he is only now aware that he is hungry, starving even, and the sweet, soft flesh of that rabbit would go a long way to satisfying him.

The rabbit bolts off, in the direction of Castiel's muddled scent.

Dean follows.

(-*-)

"What are you?" Castiel asks, frozen in stupefaction and fear.

"A demi-God."

"There is but one God." Castiel says, "and one devil besides."

The man rolls his eyes. "One devil perhaps, but, certainly more than one God, though none so powerful as the Almighty. There are Gods for every country, every town, sometimes even for every facet of life – for the growing of crops, the birthing of babies, and other, trifling things like war."

"And you are the god of..."

"Lies." The man says easily, "I suppose you might say, _entertaining _lies is closer to the mark. I specialise in striking down the arrogant and unworthy, punishing them, making examples of them... Wisakedjak is the name given to me by the native people here. But...elsewhere I am other beings, have other names. I am, put simply – a trickster."

"And... you are here with me because..."

"Where better to find arrogance than the new world?" the man cries, "and oh, this is just the start, the future holds many wonderful buffoons. But, my presence here, with you is mostly accidental, I was...drawn here by one Selectman Zachariah? And, finding him already dispatched, and being already disappointed by the slaughter of Crowley, I decided to diversify."

Castiel is having trouble following this man's discourse, it flows and pours out of him quickly, using words that Castiel does not understand, and describing things that he cannot imagine. This man talks of the future as if he has been there, and that is enough to worry him.

"How, pray, are you...'diversifying'?"

"Oh, I'm experimenting with elementary matchmaking," the man says, just as a blur of gold streaks past, and the bulky shape of a wolf, of _Dean, _Castiel realizes, fetches up at his side. The wolf looks at him, shaken, thin and pitiable, but no less frightening to Castiel, who fears retribution as much as he does rejection.

He chances a glance towards his newfound companion, only to find that, Wisakedjak, has vanished.

Castiel looks back at Dean, all other mysteries forgotten now that his mate is here before him. Dean noses forwards penitently, tail and head lowered to the ground. He whimpers softly, and Castiel is no longer afraid.

Then, Abel begins to squall, and Dean looks up, fierce eyed, startled by the sound. Even in his animal form, the wonder on his features is unmistakable. And Castiel feels a warm surge of pride and elation.

"A son." Castiel says simply. "If...if you will have him...have me." The wall inside of him breaks, and words fall through, "I am so sorry I left you, I...I only felt that I was a mistake, a twist of nature, of...and you would be better off with a mate, an...equal, someone who could,"

Dean shifts with a sound of effort, seating himself at Castiel's feet, head against his thigh, beside where Abel's pink fist waves in the air.

Dean lets out a wordless sigh, a small, self-conscious sound of contentment.

And there is nothing else left between them, no black despair, or doubt, or hate. Only the subtle healing of a bond made new, and the small cries of their son, who falls asleep between them, only moments later.


	8. Chapter 8

_Not gonna lie, this is a pretty stressful time. I'm 10,000 words from reaching the end of my novel, and I've been writing like the blazes when I haven't been working. I graduate next week and this update has kind of been gathering words at a slow pace. Still, here it is. I hope it does the story justice. _

The remaking of the bond is a relief so intense that it is almost indescribable. Castiel feels as if a knife has been drawn from him, and the life that has been steadily bleeding from him since he left Dean's side has returned full force, filling him with strength and will.

But the bond is not as it was before, it is remade equal...or perhaps, not. For it was always equal, after a fashion, but now it is for certain – Dean is no longer an Alpha, Castiel is no longer his Omega. They have balanced, now that Dean has given away his position of power, and Castiel has seized some for himself by leaving him for the sake of his own breaking heart.

The bond is there again, new and different, but still the pain of Dean's betrayal of his poisonous _indifference__,_ hangs over them, a pall of grey sleety air.

But, for a few precious, hard earned seconds, with Dean lying on the moss speckled ground, his head on Castiel's thigh, and Castiel, cradling his son, looking down at the face of his lover, his mate, Dean's face still drawn with worry and fear, but smoothed out a little in peace and rest...for a moment they are complete together – not struggling, not hacking a path in a lonely, dark and tricksome forest, forging a path where none was before. For a moment they are themselves, and troublesome things like the past, and the future, do not exist.

Then, in a breath, it returns.

"It feels different," Castiel says quietly.

Dean shifts, looks up at him, his eyes open and unguarded, his face smudged and stained with dirt, his hair long and shaggy over his eyes. "I'm not an Alpha anymore."

Castiel blinks at him, one arm tightening around the bundle that is Abel. "what happened? Did they...were you beaten?"

Dean sighs and shakes his head. "I gave it up. I gave it to Sam."

Castiel watches him warily. "You were so adamant that you would remain our leader...why did you-"

"You." Dean says simply. "You, are more important than a duty I never wanted."

"But your father wanted you to be Alpha."

Dean's gaze darkens and moves to the trees around them. "My father didn't want anything of me and Sam, save our survival. He wanted our mother's killer to be torn down, and he gave his life for that. He gave my life, for that."

It's the most eloquently that Dean has ever spoken, in broken phrases filled with bitter, winter's truth and his own past wretchedness.

"You're the only thing that I have ever wanted, for myself," Dean tells him, "and...I do, want you. Me. the part of me that's human. But the wolf..." he sighs, "the wolf needs survival, survival of my Alphas seat, survival of my line, of our pack. I wish I didn't have to feel that need, but I do."

"I know it's not enough," Castiel says quietly, "Abel...it's not enough to make up for not having your own blood children."

"For this part of me, it is," Dean says softly, looking down at his human hands. He hated being human, hated the feelings and memories and vulnerability that came with it, but...his human side was content, happy with Castiel. While the wolf was tugging away, valuing its mate but still looking for a female to produce offspring. Looking for the pack's last hope at continuance.

Dean makes his decision right then. It's not born out of despair and hatred, as his last one was. The decision he'd made when his father had been executed. This is a decision born out of a need to hold onto everything that he holds dear. To the first warm thing to come to him out of the cold.

"Castiel...I will stay, like this." Dean says, "I will not change, I will forget I even can. Like before. Only...I will be a man, not a wolf."

Castiel's eyes widen in shock. "But, you...you always seemed to favour the wolf, prefer that side of you – I can't ask you to deny it."

"You didn't." Dean points out, "And, it's already served me – it found me you, and it let me protect you, and change you, so that you could be strong against Crowley...now it is only keeping us apart, making me look elsewhere when all I want is to look to you."

Castiel moves forwards, and Dean wraps his arms around him, feeling the baby stir between them, before settling back to sleep.

"I have to see Sam again," Dean murmurs, "I need him to be my family, even if we will not be pack brothers anymore."

Castiel looks up at him, face pale and fearful. "What about the war?"

Dean breathes deeply, feeling so much older than his years. He's seen so much death, and so much pointless conflict. He will protect what's his – Castiel, their son, his family. But he does not think he has it in him to fight some other man's fight – a fight for the people who abandoned his mother, against those who had taken her and his father from him.

"We'll keep out of the war, as much as we can...travel to deeper woods and hide there." Dean does not relish the prospect of surviving without his wolf form to help him, living as a weak and vulnerable human in the pit of winter's howling belly. But, he knows that he is more than many other men, he is stronger, he knows the forest...he will be able to survive where they would fail.

"And if the war finds us?" Castiel asks.

"Then I will change, and tear apart anyone who threatens us. Settler or not. I can trust the wolf to stay with you then, to protect you."

They lie down beside the fire, and, after a while, a dark shape slides out of the forest and approaches them.

"I told you not to look for me." Dean says.

The shape shifts, and Sam sits on the ground beside them.

"I can't help doing what I've always done." He points out.

Dean looks at him, "you should not need to follow me now, Alpha."

Sam's face grows sad. "I'd thought that...once you found him, you would return. That I wouldn't carry the Alpha's duty anymore."

Dean shakes his head. "I will not return. Not it changing will lead me away from this." He gestures to where Castiel is lying at his side, half asleep in the fire's glow. It is only then that Sam notices the baby in his arms.

"An orphaned settler." Dean explains, "we are going to find some safe place to raise him. Away from the war, from everything."

"It will be hard without your other form," Sam tells him, "especially with a child, even if Castiel still shifts."

Dean nods gravely, and the two of them look into the fire, where gold rabbits dance, shadowy figures loom, and wolves chase upwards towards the sky, black, then grey, then white.

"I will come with you." Sam says finally.

Dean starts out of silence. "You cannot leave Jessica, and Joseph."

"I will collect Jessica from the cave, and I will follow you."

"It would be too dangerous to take them."

"Jessica survived the winter as a penniless widow, with a child, she is stronger than you think. And, whatever you can face, I will face with you...I will not allow you to go into danger without me, and suffer as you did when you sought our father's killer. Wolves or not, we are brothers, and I will protect you, as you protect me."

Dean is set to argue, but Sam puts a hand on his arm and says, "I am the Alpha here Dean – let me take care of my family."

Dean hesitates, but nods, and they lapse into silence.

Around them, the forest yawns like a hungry mouth, waiting to swallow them whole. Somehow, over the painful winters and war filled summers of their short lives, they have formed a strange family, one larger than either of them ever thought possible. And, though danger and privation meant that Dean had entered the world with claws ready, he will leave it as a man – with a man beside him, and a man to take his place. His son.

The wheel will turn, and snow will cover them in the ground one day.

But not for many winters to come.


End file.
